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Chris Murphy of Connecticut (not to be confused with Tim Murphy, the Representative from Pennsylvania who is responsible for the Murphy Bill discussed above) proposed a gun amendment that targeted “the seriously mentally ill and other dangerous people,” and referred to people with psychiatric diagnoses who have been subjected to forced treatment as “adjudicated as a mental defective.” More importantly, the amendment suggested blocking gun access for anyone who has ever been forced into any kind of psychiatric treatment, no matter how long ago.

While gun control is a worthy discussion, laws that set out to specifically target people with psychiatric diagnoses not only ignore existing research but are discriminatory. Additionally, any legislation that suggests that people with psychiatric diagnoses are dangerous is damaging to our community and likely to lead to increased force and violence against us. Fortunately, this amendment was reviewed and rejected on June 20th, but we will need to keep our eyes open for more like it in coming days!